You just heard Richard Lowry (Editor of National Review) mention what
it’s like to be a conservative in New York City. Now I’ll talk about what it’s
like to be an atheist in South Carolina.

To illustrate how American values are being undermined by American
religion, I’ll begin with a personal story. My local city council in
Charleston, South Carolina starts its meetings with an invocation, usually by
a Christian cleric. At my request, one council member invited me to give a
secular invocation. But as I got up to speak, half the council members
walked out because they knew I was an atheist.

One councilman justified the walkout by quoting from Psalm 14: “The fool
says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is not one who does good.” He then told me it was not personal. In
other words, his religious beliefs compelled him to ignore or demonize an
entire class of people he was elected to represent. Frankly, I would rather it
had been personal.

Another councilman told the press, referring to me, "He can worship a
chicken if he wants to, but I'm not going to be around when he does it."
Ironically, those of us who stand politely during religious invocations
believe that praying to a god makes no more sense than praying to a chicken.
At least you can see a chicken.

And here is my “dreaded” Invocation, in which I promote American values,
that several City Council members refused to even listen to.

***

Thank you for this opportunity to “invoke” a minority point of view. Each of
us is a minority in some way. It might be race, religion, sexual orientation,
nationality, or however else we may be regarded as different. Each of us is
also part of some majority. It is when we wear our majority hats that we
need to be most mindful of how we treat others. We must pledge our best
efforts to help one another, and to defend the rights of all of our citizens and
residents.

What divides us is not so much our religious differences in this diverse
country, but the degree of commitment we have to equal freedom of
conscience for all people. We are gathered today, both religious and secular
members of our community, with the shared belief that we must treat our
fellow human beings with respect and dignity.

In this invocation, I don’t ask you to bow your heads, but to look up at what
you can accomplish by applying your talents and experience to the issues
that confront us. I don’t ask you to close your eyes, but to keep your eyes
open to the serious problems that city government can solve or improve. As
you work together on behalf of all who live in this city, may you draw
strength and sustenance from one another through reason and compassion.

I closed my invocation in a bipartisan manner by quoting from two
American presidents I greatly admire —one a Republican and the other a
Democrat.

First, the Republican: “When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel
bad. That is my religion.” Abraham Lincoln

Then, the Democrat: “It’s remarkable how much you can accomplish if you
don’t care who gets the credit.” Harry S. Truman

***

And I thank all of you for not walking out on my invocation.

Another councilman who did walk out argued that it was particularly wrong
for an atheist to give an invocation when our military was fighting for
American principles, based on God. And speaking of the military, a top
Pentagon General (William Boykin) said that Muslims worship an idol, not a
real God, and referred to the United States as a Christian nation doing battle
against Satan.

But America has never been a Christian nation, and I have in my hand a
Godless document to prove it— the United States Constitution.

(Point of Information from an audience member: Isn’t the “Creator”
mentioned in the U.S. Constitution? My response: No, not in the
Constitution. It is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, which is
not a governing document but a call for rebellion against the British Crown.
The Declaration refers to a Creator endowing people with inalienable rights
to distinguish us from an empire that asserted the divine right of kings.
Many of our founders were deists, believing in a deity that created the
universe and laws of nature, and then retired to “deity emeritus.”)

James Madison, affectionately known as the Father of our Constitution, said
"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these
shores the endless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for
centuries." Our founders understood the devastating nature of holy wars.
They wisely established a secular nation whose authority rested with "We
the People"(the first three wordsof the U.S. Constitution) not with "Thou
the Deity."

But American Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia disagrees. He
maintains that the 10 Commandments are a symbol of the fact that
government derives its authority from God. The previous speaker mentioned
that Judge Roy Moore’s obsession with displays of the 10 Commandments
in Alabama is of little importance because he is a marginal character. I’m
sure Mr. Lowry would not say the same of Justice Scalia.

Many Americans who want the 10 Commandments displayed in our secular
schools and courts either don’t realize or don’t care that the first
Commandment (Thou shalt have no other gods) conflicts with the first
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion,
the right to worship one, many, or no gods. Even some of our liberal
politicians, like former presidential candidate Senator Joseph Lieberman,
insist that we have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. So much
for freedom of conscience! And quite a contrast from Thomas Jefferson,
who said, “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods
or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

When I first began going to school, children recited a daily pledge of
allegiance to one nation, indivisible. Then in 1954, during the shameful
McCarthy era, “under God” was added to the pledge to distinguish us from
those godless Communists. But American secular schools are no place for
religious indoctrination. Some judges agree, but President George W. Bush
(who nominates them) announced: “We need commonsense judges who
understand that our rights were derived from God.” But “rights derived from
God” is a belief, not an understanding. And judges are supposed to make
decisions based on the rule of law, not on their personal beliefs.

In the melting pot called America, we are one nation under the Constitution
(or maybe under Canada), but not one nation under God. In fact, given how
the religious right opposes the teaching of evolution, or any scientific or
social view that conflicts with a literal interpretation of the Bible, we are
really becoming one nation under-educated. And this is not an American
value to be proud of.

Religion based-discrimination must never become an American value.
Which brings me to the year 1990, and my brief political career. At the time,
I was a just a university mathematics professor, blissfully unaware of what
living in the “Bible Belt” really meant. One day, a colleague pointed out a
clause in our South Carolina Constitution that barred nonbelievers from becoming
governor. Since the U.S. Constitution prohibits religious tests for any public
office, I consulted an attorney. He agreed that the state had no good legal argument,
but said the only way to challenge this unconstitutional provision would be for me to
become a candidate for governor.

So I did. I certainly didn’t expect to win the election. As far as I can tell, not one
open atheist has ever been elected to public office anywhere in the United States. In
referring to how tolerant and diverse Christianity is in America, Mr. Lowry referred
to a committed Christian like Howard Dean leaving one sect to join another
because of a dispute over a bicycle path. I expect Mr. Lowry might feel as I do, that
Howard Dean is not a committed Christian at all, but has to pretend he is in order to
get elected.

I ran for governor not to be elected, but because I assumed it would force state
officials to bring South Carolina into compliance with federal law. However, the
existing governor objected, saying that the state Constitution was fine just as it was
because America was founded on Godly principles.

When I received media attention during my campaign for governor, I was typically
introduced as a “so-called” atheist or an “admitted” atheist. I wondered what the
reaction would have been had another candidate been introduced as a “so-called”
Christian, or an “admitted” Jew. People sometimes asked me if, as an atheist, I felt
free to go out and rape, murder, or commit any other atrocities I thought I could get
away with. My response to such questions was: “With an attitude like that, I hope
you continue to believe in a God.” I soon recognized that even more important than
changing the state constitution was trying to change the hearts and minds of my
fellow South Carolinians.

I had my day in court, but the judge said he would only rule on the merits of the case
if I won the election. To the surprise of no one, I lost. I then discovered that South
Carolina’s Constitution prohibited atheists from holding any public office. So I
applied for the only non-elective office, that of a lowly notary public (someone who
stamps documents and verifies signatures). None of thousands of applicants had
ever been turned down by the state—until me. To make an eight-year story
short, I finally won a unanimous South Carolina Supreme Court decision in
1997 allowing me to become a notary public, and that nullified the religious
test requirement in the South Carolina Constitution.

None of the political leaders opposing me, and certainly not the lawyers advising
them, ever believed they could prevail legally. Yet they showed they would rather
waste time and money (about $100,000 of taxpayer money) on a lost cause than risk
the wrath and lose the votes of a well-organized religious right electorate.

Throughout American history, conservative religionists have selectively quoted
from a book written some two to three thousand years ago by people living in a
small corner of the Mediterranean world. They have used their holy book to justify
American slavery. I disagree with a previous speaker who said that Christianity was
a major force for abolishing slavery. It is no coincidence that the states in which
slavery was legal were the ones with the highest percentage of Christians.

Some still use their ancient holy books to justify child beating, discrimination
against blacks, women, gays, atheists, and any others who disagree with their
narrow religious worldview. We now have a George W. Bush faith-based
administration in the White House working closely with the religious right
to push our secular democracy toward a creeping theocracy. This is a
perversion of the American values I treasure. To understand the universe and
solve human problems, America must be a country committed to the
application of reason, science, and experience (not religion)— a country
where our deeds are more important than our creeds.